


The Future Seemed So Bright

by technicallyGodless



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Major character death - Freeform, Self-Hatred, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 03:19:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1924743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technicallyGodless/pseuds/technicallyGodless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Karkat Vantas and it just so happens you've stumbled into a dream bubble full of the friends you lost a sweep ago. Everything hurts just as much as the day they died, but you decide that you have to apologize to them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Future Seemed So Bright

Your name is Karkat Vantas and it just so happens you've stumbled into a dream bubble full of the friends you lost a sweep ago. Everything hurts just as much as the day they died, but you decide that you have to apologize to them all. 

They all look at you so differently now. Yeah sure, their eyes aren't exactly as yellow as yours anymore and their hearts aren't technically beating. But you can still see their emotions through the milky white of their gazes, they're your fucking friends! ...Right? 

You have to keep reminding yourself that they don't hate you as much as you feel like they do. Despite their multiple hues staining your hands and the tears you shed in the stead of acting to save even one of them, despite your leadership skills being as shitty as they were when you were just growing out of your vestigial legs. Scream loud enough at someone and something's bound to happen, that was your mindset. Pretty damned flawed, but then again, what difference was it going to make now? Sitting curled in a ball while you pass through the hundredth dream bubble of the night lamenting every last decision you were ever allowed to make doesn't change the fact that there are eyes on you that you have to meet. There are so many of them, unblinking and waiting for their friend to say something. 

Hah, what a laugh that is. They still refer to you as a friend. You only let them die in immensely gruesome fashions, not even having the decency to respectfully dispose of their corpses. No. That was one of the more disgusting bits that you often tended to dwell on; While you rocked on the floor in an emotionally destroyed wreck, crying and screaming for this to stop, that piece of trash clown got his filthy paws on your friends. The one you were supposed to take care of. That guy who you deigned call a moirail because you had no other choice but to keep him calm and collected for the sake of yourself and all your other friends. What a fucking joke your efforts proved themselves to be there. 

Even he somehow wised up and left you in the dirt to wallow in the fact that there is no being out there as despicable as yourself. English has nothing on the putrid acts you caused or allowed to commence. Maybe the guy is set out to destroy everything ever, at least he's honest about it. You're just a pitiful slug that put itself in a position of power to stroke its slimy, barely-existent puddle of an ego in hopes it'd impress someone into believing you were worth something. Hi-fucking-larious. 

But right, they're still here. You guess you're technically encroaching on the bubble they've decided to congeal in, the perfect group of your fallen comrades. Fallen being the understatement of the epoch, they were all practically hurdled off an hundred-mile-up cliff with a very sharp, unforgiving bottom. And looking up from the floor to see even their shoes is like reliving every moment again, shame bearing down on you stronger with every second that ticks past. You can really only tell time is passing due to the audible clicking of someone's watch. How useless is a watch in the afterlife, it'd not like you could possibly manage to be late anywhere. Whoever is wearing the thing is either into very cruel irony or is too moronic for their own good. You immediately suspect Ampora. 

Who are you to be judging a dead kid though, and oh that's right. They're still six sweeps while you've already crept over seven. It hurts so bad to think on this shit but you only focus on it more intensely. If anyone deserves this pain, it's you. May as well go down the line of them, look at their expressions that are trying to not focus on you all at once. They know how you used to be, in need of being tiptoed around for fear you'll blow a gasket and explode on one of them. Which you could have already done for anything, but it seems the pusher-wrenching pain of guilt overrides the fact that you're supposed to be an angry mess.

But right, time to look at their faces, look into their dead fucking eyes and force yourself to look for longer than a single second. Force their pain into yourself and try to steal it all away like you should have so long ago. 

First there's the one who should have been in line to the throne, the ghost of royalty pumping through the ghost of veins. The girl had so much to live for, just like the rest of them. She could have changed the whole damned planet, she was so eager to make everyone happy and try to get the firmest grasp on equality a little girl possibly could. She coddled lowbloods, but everyone changes their fair share even within one sweep. Imagine how much better a leader she would have been. Maybe if you'd have died in her place, the matriorb would still be intact, her evolved ideals already coming into action on the meteor. Feferi. You're so damn sorry, and you tell her so. 

Standing next to her with a concerned expression is the kid whose potential barely even reached the halfway mark before his light was drowned out. The boy's powers were strong, he could have one day controlled any beast on Alternia given the time to evolve himself and his abilities. He ran a little low in the confidence area, though he somehow drew up the gall to stand up to his abuser. Had the globes to try and take on an opponent he knew there was almost no chance of defeating. He tried so fucking hard, you could have seen him as a top Cavalreaper. But he's dead now, none of that will ever come to fruition. Tavros, you deserve so much better, and you tell him so.

Then there's her, trying with all her being to smile at you like she used to. Just like when you'd dismiss the genuine grins because you were far too "busy" to loosen up for five seconds and be the kid you were. But now it's strained and you can see it, she's fidgeting with her jacket nervously and trying to speak up. But you cut her off with a palm to the air, just like you always used to and you regret it right away. But you're thinking right now, on how incredible she was. The girl would lighten anyone's mood with her role-playing shtick. But the act was put to good use. If one saw her in action either during a FLARP or just in the way she lived, you'd assume she had the tracking experience of seven and a half sweep old, in the very least. She could have been a well feared huntress one day, but she never has the chance now because of you. Nepeta shouldn't have had to die like that, shouldn't have had to die at all and you're the sorriest thing on the planet. You tell her so. 

The next girl almost makes you glare. Does she have any idea what she put the girl you love through, what she put all of you through? But again, your own actions could have lead to what she did, who knows. You know for a fact she was just trying to salvage your session somehow, take on an enemy so much bigger than anything she or any of you could understand. Her ego was too much in the end, she had to go out as a hero. Speaking technically, that is. Died midair on her way to fuck up some bad guys, rough up the boss you know she would have barely laid a blade on. Maybe if she'd have lived on in your stead she would have captained the whole session into something far different. Maybe after the game ended she'd get herself a position in the Imperial Force. But she's the ghost of a kid now, that's all too bad. You're sorry for everything, Vriska, you really are, and you tell her so. 

This one likely can't stand the thought of you. His arms are crossed tighter than a vise, a look of betrayal gracing his face. What can you even think that would sound justified here? This guy was ridiculously strong willed and bodied, defiant and yet submissive to figures of authority. You can't wrap your head around some of his thoughts, but that matters none. What does matter is thinking about how fucking heroically the guy acted. Whether it was an act or not matters very little to you now, because the guy was willing to go down by the hands of that insane asshole in order to protect his moirail. Who he likely trusted to be protected by you in turn. But you disappointed him even more than anyone, your sad self couldn't pull it together to reign in the jester that quite literally shattered a perfectly balanced pale relationship. Equius, I can't be sorrier for everything I failed to do and the fact that you could have been so much more if I hadn't been a complete failure, and you tell him so. 

The last one looks at you with that blank look of distasteful nobility that seemed plastered to his features. You swallow hard at his gaze, that little spark of regret flashing in his own eyes. With this one you aren't sure where to start. Maybe if you had somehow been able to talk with him on a better level, taken his shouts for help seriously rather than brushing them off to deal with a hopeless case palemate, he wouldn't have been pushed off the deep end. He had a dysfunctional moiraillegiance, though it may have worked better between the two of you. You were always capable of talking him down, why hadn't you seen this coming and tried to preemptively stop it? He could have grown to be the most honored Orphaner in the Empress's entire fleet, stronger than fucking anything, but he's a little too dead for that. Jesus Eridan, you did what you did, but it isn't entirely your fault, I'm sorry. So, so sorry, and you tell him so. 

By now they're all frowning deeply and there's angry, translucent red spilling from your eyes. They're trying to talk to you, trying to explain something you don't want to hear. Whatever they have to say is going to hurt you more, whether or not you desperately need the closure. During your internal tirade, you'd apparently gotten up and begun to pace before your dead friends. You're afraid to touch them, scared that if you so much as breathe too close they'll dissipate.. Hold on. 

You aren't breathing. 

Not once have you required to take a breath, never have you felt a dull burn in your chest to alert you to get air. You're asleep, you know that, but you still need to breathe in dreams. You always had, anyhow. 

You understand their screwed-up faces now, your mouth drops open so very slightly to gape at them. Holding your hands in front of yourself, you inspect them. You pat all over your body frantically, searching for a wound that wouldn't be there even if it did exist. The princess is reaching for you now and you let her. Her hand rests so softly on your shoulder it feels like she fears she'll break you, which she likely does. A few of them are beginning to mumble things you assume to be reassurances, but you're sinking to your knees before them. Salty tears slip from your very blank eyes as your hands habitually move to grip the sides of your head. The younger ghosts form a half circle around you, all kneeling and trying to grab for your attention to keep your wits intact. But God is it too late. You're already shaking, body convulsing in fitful tears. And laughter. 

Your shoulders begin to tremble more and more violently with something you haven't let out in maybe a few years. The feeling is foreign, but this is the most bittersweet thing you could ever think of. Spending your whole existence on that meteor and even a while before that, loathing yourself, screaming when you're alone about how you should just do it already. Just off yourself, get it the fuck over with because it wasn't like anyone could possibly miss you. 

You're laughing and they are all painted with looks of confused concern, but you don't fucking care. You finally got what you deserve and there was nothing stopping you from enjoying it. 

\--------------------

Your name is Dave Strider and you haven't stopped screaming since you came across the body.

**Author's Note:**

> hah this made me kinda sad but hopefully you like it!


End file.
